Takeaways from day six of the Paul Manafort trial

Norman Tucker

Downing on Tuesday spent several hours firing questions at Gates to impugn his credibility and paint him as a liar, asking about everything from his extramarital affair in London and funds he embezzled from Manafort, to questions on whether he may have crossed the line by submitting personal expenses when he worked for Trump's inaugural committee.

Gates said he helped Manafort hide secret bank accounts in the United Kingdom, Cyprus and the Grenadines. "I'm not very patient, so don't try my patience", Ellis said. But prosecutors dropped charges against Gates after the former business partner took a plea deal and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors.

The case against Manafort has little to do with either man's work for the Trump campaign and there's been no discussion during the trial about whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russian Federation - the central question Mueller's team has tried to answer.

Manafort's former bookkeeper Heather Washkuhn testified last week that Manafort falsely reported to Federal Savings Bank that his company DMP International pulled in $3 million the first nine months of 2016 when it actually lost more than $1 million from January through November.

In one email, Manafort wrote "WTF" and "not happy" about tax payments he was going to have to make, Gates said.

Day 7 of the Paul Manafort trial begins in Alexandria, Virginia on Wednesday with the continuation of a blistering cross examination of Manafort's former business associate Rick Gates.

Gates is cooperating in hopes of a lighter prison sentence. Gates also said Manafort floated banker Stephen Calk's name for consideration as Secretary of the Army, a post he ultimately did not get. By reporting it as a loan, Gates explained, he could defer the amount of taxes he owed. Instead, prosecutors for Mueller have accuse Manafort of hiding at least $30 million that he earned while representing Russia's neighboring country of Ukraine and its president, Viktor Yanukovych, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Prosecutors have noted that Gates and Manafort were not the targets of the investigation at the time of the interview.

Gates said it was a "very common method" for Dr. K and that, once the money was moved into the accounts, Manafort decided what to do with it.

Possible embezzlement of millions Manafort's attorneys went on the attack against Gates on Monday, alleging that Gates told accountants to falsify Manafort's tax returns because Gates was trying to cover up the fact that he had "embezzled millions of dollars" from their firm.

Gates not only testified that he had committed crimes with Manafort but also admitted he stole money from his former boss. But Gates nonetheless faced aggressive questioning by Manafort's lawyer, Kevin Downing, who at one point asked him, "After all the lies you've told and the fraud you've committed, you expect this jury to believe you?"

The 46-year-old former political consultant told jurors how Manafort asked for tickets to Trump's inauguration so he could give them to a banker involved in approving a loan at the center of his financial fraud trial.

A clothier said he sold Manafort more than $900,000 in suits, a bookkeeper says she helped disguise foreign income as a loan to reduce Manafort's tax burden and, on Wednesday, an Federal Bureau of Investigation forensic account said Manafort hid more than 30 offshore accounts in three types of currencies from the IRS.

All three testified that Manafort and Gates failed to tell them about the foreign holdings in Cyprus.

Gates converted the 2015 DMP P&L to a Word document for Manafort, but there were spacing, font, and other discrepancies between that copy and the original. "I'm here", Gates said from the witness chair.

In another heated exchange, Downing tried to press Gates into explicitly saying that he had embezzled money from Manafort. Downing did not question Gates further about any extra-marital affairs when the cross-examination resumed.

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